Three course extravaganza.

I have spent all weekend eating. Or that’s what it feels like. Amazing. Last night we had an extremely good value Moroccan meal at Sami’s in Chapel Allerton; £12 for three courses. Ridiculous. It’s a bit basic but still tasty, and very, very cheap! (and bring your own booze, happy days)

Today I was cooking as, not only was it Father’s Day, but yesterday was my Mum’s birthday. So I decided to make something a little bit special. However, I was also conscious that it’s Sunday night, so it couldn’t be too heavy. The menu went like this:

Grilled asparagus and halloumi starter; Cod with creamy leeks and peas, pancetta and Jersey new potatoes; then chocolate brownies with raspberries and vanilla ice cream.

The key is to be prepared… I managed to spend the whole day reading papers and hanging out with my folks then pull it all together.

Yesterday I made brownies according to this recipe: My earlier blog with a brownie recipe

Then this morning I made a dressing for the asparagus starter, by blending together 6 olives, the juice of half a lemon, some olive oil and some salt and pepper.  Pop it in a jam jar, so that later you can just give it a shake and it’s good to go.

For the starter I coated the asparagus in a little olive oil and cut the halloumi into big chunks. Then shove it all on the griddle pan. 

Stack a few asparagus spears, with a big chunk of griddled halloumi on top, then a handful of rocket. Drizzle over some dressing. 

In advance I griddled the pancetta until it was crispy and part cooked the leeks and peas. Whilst preparing the starter I got the potatoes on. 

I’m a bit gutted, I forgot to take a picture of the potatoes, and after they were cooked I tossed them in some butter with chopped parsley and chives (from my garden!) They were lovely.

In defence of the use of cod, my Dad offered to get something for the meal and I went to two supermarkets and was so unimpressed by the selection I asked him to get the fish. I asked for a more sustainable alternative, but the fishmonger convinced him that line caught North Atlantic cod is sometimes ok. And according to http://www.fishfight.net/ that’s true, so I went with it.

After the starter it was a case of reheating the leeks and peas whilst the cod was pan frying over a high heat. I added lemon juice and a touch of cream to the veg as well as plenty of black pepper.

Then stack them up too. Toss the pancetta in a hot frying pan to reheat a little bit and put a bit on top. Yum.

I'm really annoyed I didn't notice the two runaway peas when I took this picture - they've ruined the presentation!

Then for pud I just zapped the brownies in the microwave for a minute, then served with fresh Scottish raspberries, and some nice vanilla ice cream. 

Whilst making this I was mostly listening to: Fleet Foxes. 

Apologies if this is full of mistakes; quite hastily written as I'm shattered! Ready for an early night before work tomorrow. Rock. And. Roll.

Fancy barbecue in the rain

When I originally decided I wanted to have a barbecue, the forecast was much nicer. As soon as I’ve decided on something I’m going to cook, I tend to think about it a lot and formulate a plan. So when the weather looked fairly rubbish this weekend, I had planned too much to change my mind.

As well as this, my parents had given us a barbecue ages ago and I’ve been itching to use it. I put it all together this morning, and only had a few bits leftover when I’d finished!

Now there is no need for a barbecue to be like this, last time we had one we just had burgers, but I spent all today doing boring jobs and was ready to hang out in the kitchen for a while.  Plus, inspired by our trip to Turkey I had an urge to cook meat on sticks.

So the menu is: Halloumi kebabs, lamb and aubergine kebabs, tabbouleh, and watercress and carrot salad. Poncy, eh?

First, prep the lamb. Lamb is really expensive at the moment, my butcher actually apologised for the price! But like I said, my heart was set on it, and it was a one off. I made a little rub for the cubed lamb, with pepper, cumin, paprika, chilli flakes and salt, mushed up in a pestle and mortar. You don’t need loads of it.

Throw it in a freezer bag and put in the lamb. Tie the top and give it all a squidge round so all the lamb gets some of the coating. Leave this out of the fridge to get the flavour into the meat, for at least half an hour.

Next I made the halloumi kebabs by chopping into big chunks the cheese, some courgette and some peppers. I skewered all this with a little bit of basil on the cheese, than drizzled it with a bit of olive oil and black pepper.

The irony is, after spending a small fortune on the lamb, we both actually preferred the halloumi. I think that’s probably just because halloumi is absolutely amazing stuff.

Then I made the tabouleh (out of interest, how do you pronounce this, TAB-ouleh? Tab-OU-leh?) Cook bulgur wheat according to the packet instructions (I think it varies slightly depending on the packet)

I would normally say that life’s too short to peel tomatoes unless they’re going in a sauce so you really need to get rid of the skin. However, today I was quite happy listening to music and pottering in the kitchen, so I though I may as well. Slightly score the skin, then pour over boiling water. Leave it a few minutes, but no more or they’ll start cooking. Then run under cold water. The skin should come off really easily. Then pull out the stalks and the seeds and finely chop.  

Finely chop red onion, mint and parsley, then mix it all together with the cooled bulgur wheat. Add the juice of at LEAST half a lemon, a really good slosh of olive oil and some salt and pepper. 

Once the lambs been sitting in the rub for a while it’s good to go. Put it on some skewers with some big chunks of aubergine and rub a little oil on to help prevent it sticking.

The watercress salad is just loads of chopped up salad stuff with some grated carrot, and a quick balsamic dressing. (one part balsamic to two parts olive oil and a little salt and pepper). Ours had watercress, cucumber, celery, spring onion and a handful of mixed seeds. Because I’m a hippy.

I also threw some asparagus on there, because I find it completely impossible to see half price asparagus at this time of year without buying it. Just toss it in a little olive oil and salt and pepper, it only takes 5 – 10 minutes on the barbecue so put it on last.

Prep done! A couple of top tips for barbecuing I heard on Woman’s Hour the other day (so rock and roll):

- Make sure all the coals have gone grey and there are no flames.

- Make sure the meat is at room temperature; it stops it from being too tough when it gets the shock of going on the heat.

- Don’t turn things too much, as you risk losing a lot of the juices which keep the meat moist.

My own tip is just to work out how long things need so you put it on in the right order, and not play with it too much. Our new barbecue has a lid, which is really handy for more even cooking.

So for this I put the lamb on first. They don’t take that long, about 5 – 10 minutes on each side. Then the halloumi, and finally the asparagus.

Frankly, yum! 

Feeding the post holiday blues

It’s a while since my last post, but that’s because we’ve just come back from an amazing holiday in Istanbul. I’d highly recommend it! There was so much to see, we ran out of time even though we had a full week.  We also spent our time eating bread with sheeps cheese, kebaps, baklava, fresh fish and drinking loads of tea (and not particularly good Turkish red wine).  

Basically a week of over-indulgence. It was brilliant.  And now we’re home wading through about four loads of washing and facing slightly unhealthy bank balances, my plan to tackle this is to cook, cook and cook some more.  So here we go, three recipes in one blog:

1.  The slightly luxurious, drink it with wine, pretend you’re still on holiday meal:  Asparagus Risotto.

Anyone who has lived with me will know I make a lot of risottos.  I love risottos, and they’re pretty easy, just keep it constantly on a lowish heat.

Fry finely chopped onion, celery and garlic in a little butter and oil so it goes slightly translucent but doesn’t colour. 

Add the risotto rice, and cook for about thirty seconds so all the grains are coated in buttery goodness. Add a decent glassful of white wine, give it a stir and let all the wine cook down.

Snap the woody ends bits of your asparagus and chop the rest into chunks about a couple of centimetres long. Add these, and a ladleful of stock, and keep stirring. 

Gradually keep adding stock about a ladleful at a time and regularly stirring for about fifteen minutes, until the rice is cooked. It should still have a little bit of bite.

Stir in a good handful of grated parmesan, a knob of butter and a squeeze of lemon juice. Have with salad and cold white wine…

  

2.  The store cupboard, cheap and cheerful, batch cooked meal: Chorizo and bean stew.

I split my life between Hull and Leeds, and struggle sometimes to keep eating healthy tasty meals while away.  To rectify this, I made a VERY easy stew to last me a couple of nights.

Fry some chopped chorizo in a little oil, until the oil starts to turn red. 

Add a chopped onion, some chopped celery and some garlic and chilli. Everything should keep a bit of an orange tinge. Then add some extra paprika and chilli flakes, stir in, before adding loads of veg. For me, this was peppers, courgettes and mushrooms.  

Add a tin of beans, I used borlotti, and a tin of tomatoes.  Add some tomato puree, Worcestershire sauce and top up with water. Let it bubble down for quite a while (probably about half an hour) and continually check for seasoning, it’ll take quite a lot of salt and pepper.

If it tastes too spicy or too sharp, add a little sugar to take the edge off it. Stir in some spinach at the end.

Done! I’ll be eating this with some cous cous. 

3.  The post-holiday diet starts today, healthy vegetable-tastic soup: Sort of Thai vegetable and noodle soup.

Blitz up a decent amount of garlic, chilli and ginger, and fry it in some oil with some sliced onion.  Add a spoonful of Thai curry paste. And fry a little.

Then add a load of veggies, for me this was sliced pak choi, thinly sliced carrots, mushrooms, and green beans, and a few halved cherry tomatoes. 

Add some stock, and allow it to bubble away but not for too long (best if the veggies retain a little bit of bite) Add some lime juice, and plenty of Thai fish sauce (to taste) at the end, as well as some chopped fresh coriander.

Meanwhile, cook some noodles separately.  I was looking for rice noodles, but they were sadly lacking from my supermarket so I ended up with udon noodles. When they’re cooked rinse them with cold water to keep them separate.

Because I was taking this to work for lunches, I let it cool in separate containers, then added the noodles to each one.

I made this with home made chicken stock, but if you were going to be making a veggie version just use vegetable stock and soy sauce instead of Thai fish sauce.